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I Forge Iron

Making Nails with illustrations


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This has been made a new thread so it is not lost

 

Spent most of the day working on precision, I'm not particularly good at working right on the edge of my anvil. Consequently that resulted in bad nail blanks,  so I went with it.  Also worked up another tong half with a random length of 3/4. 

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Using my newly finished tongs. 

 

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Ok,  First is use the far side of the anvil when forging the tip..  Then with the taper drawn to the correct length set down the shoulder to the nail headers ID, this being done on the close side of the anvil..  

The nails length will have to be adjusted once you figure out the amount of growth in heading..  

Also you can take a hotter heat initially because of how much work you will do in the forging and the spread of heat.. Meaning you will work it from a bright orange to a dark cherry red.. 

This will refine the grain structure.. 

Way to cold for forging..  Burnishing is done at this low a heat.. 

Ideally this kind of straight cut is only used on Hot metal... Hot being well cherry red and up.. 
 

 

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Thanks jlpservicesinc, I wasn't aiming to make nails truthfully. Just sorta worked out that way. My goal for the day, was specifically practicing right on the edge of the near side. As for forging cold/black heat, it's not something I regularly do, just showing/wanted to share a video- although I realize that was a bad example. The hardy cut is made of S7.

Sorry for setting a bad example. 

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I think it was great..  Everybody has to start somewhere and details are needed to keep everyone on the same page.. 


I believe you have watched the videos I have posted?  People get way hung up on what is made in a video vs the skill set shown....  The idea in the video is to teach a skill set this skill set to be built upon in the series of videos each with a little different. or harder task added in.. There really are only 5 or 6 skill sets and these get applied to every piece of metal ever forged.. 

if you are looking at creating a 4 shouldered boss with a centered point..  Ideally this is done with the pinch method and tapers again should be drawn over the far side of the anvil.. 

Once the taper is drawn come back and arc your hammer so the face will in fact mirror the flat of the anvil..  This will pinch the metal and move it away from the rod..  ((you can see this by using a vise instead of an anvil and hammer.. put the taper on the end of the rod, take and orange heat and quickly stick it into the vise an crank the handle.. you will see a neat shape.))

This is tough for most as it means being highly accurate with a hammer swing and takes tons of practice unless you are a natural.. (I am not).. 

The other way is to simply create the shoulder/boss just like making a nail..  Then push it back on center..   Again this is shown in the videos.. 

Anyhow we all move to the beat of our own drum..  Enjoy and thanks for sharing the video.. :)

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indeed, I do my best to take everyone's advice. It's the only way to improve. If I didn't- the things I work on would look VERY different, and not for the better. 

Yes I've watched them, but have some gaps between when I do and when I attempt to apply. So sometimes I forget. In this instance- I wasn't aiming to make nails, so it didn't occur to me to reference your video. There's lots of little nuances that often get missed, unless I'm particularly looking for it, again this doesn't always occur to me. 

Tapers I normally do forge over the far edge, or the horn. I haven't worked on a 4 shouldered boss yet- although I think I'll practice that tomorrow. 

When you say arc the hammer, are you referring to tilting it towards me? I forge parallel with the anvil, although dance around a lot also.

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I shall work on these methods, and update with new video. Thanks for the tips, I'm always learning something from you. =)

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The vise thing will shed a lot of light on it.. again what will happen to the metal when done   are over lapping skill sets and how the metal will move.. 

Forget about the item as a nail.. LOL.. it's the skill set that is applied that is important.

First drawing is centered shank to parent material while forging vs offsetting it later.. The Hammer is held level with the anvil while forging the boss and centering the material to the shank and is 100% over the anvil.. 

The other drawings again are of forging a nail. (had these handy). But forget about the nail aspect.. It is simply a skill set.. applied to any shoulder/boss.. This is done with 50/50 hammer on to create the shoulder..  



.  this will be my last post on this unless asked for more info as I imagine it was not what you really asked for and were just sharing what you were doing.. 

have a great day.. :)

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ohh okay I get what your saying now. Thank you very much, the illustrations really help. 

The topic does lend itself well to nails. It's kind of like using a mango to describe a shape, all the while saying to myself "mango sounds good right about now". I get distracted a little too easily. So pictures/drawings really help me understand better. 

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I get this all the time with the videos..    People really do not realize they show many skill sets involved getting to the finished product..   Problem is all they really see "is the finished product"..   

Its one of the reasons I do many of the videos in a series.. If a person starts with video #1 in the series  and watches the video.. tries it a few times and watches the video again.. It will make more sense.. Do this a couple of times and it really does create pretty good clarity and a skill set to boot.. 

 Then watch the next video in the series and make the item once.. Then watch the video again..  You will find things in the videos that were missed the first time through.. 

Your welcome..   Drawings do help a lot.. :) I drew these years back.. :) 

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One of the instructors at the shoeing school came from blacksmithing, it took about 6 weeks to learn enugh about forging shoes to acualy learn from watching him, as he could forge a fullered shoe in one heat. This is always a problem with master smiths as they move so much mental per heat that I is hard for the beginner to see what they are doing. Myself being at an intermediate stage I can catch more but buy no means all of what is going on. Illustrations or animations realy help one to under stand what is happening in fractions of a second as steel flows under the hammer.

 

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10 hours ago, JHCC said:

An employer with two pairs of arms

:) perfect!

Sorry, Jen, your pics and all are still confusing to me.

I think mudmans pic in blue above describes what I think you are describing. An edge to edge blow done either with the full face of the hammer, or tilted a bit like in his drawing, lol, but dont quote me.  ;)

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